Light Blue Colour-Matched Glass Balustrades at The Dubai Mall
A project at The Dubai Mall needed one light blue to hold across multiple large-format glass panels, seen together around an atrium rather than one at a time.
Sun Studio printed them. The colour was matched to the reference supplied, UV printed direct onto the glass and cured on it, so the panels carry the colour rather than a film applied over it.
Project snapshot
- Location
- The Dubai Mall
- Material
- Large-format flat glass
- Printing service
- Glass printing
- Application
- Balustrade and interior glass panels
- Colour
- Light blue, matched to the supplied reference
- Method
- UV printed direct onto the glass
- Glass supplied
- By the client, plain, cut to size with the fixing holes already made
- Installation
- By the client after printing
The brief
One flat colour across a set of panels is a harder brief than a pattern. A pattern hides a shift in density; a flat colour shows it. An atrium shows it twice over, because a visitor sees several panels at once, at different distances and under light that changes along the walkway.
The requirement was a specific light blue rather than an approximate one, which makes the target a physical thing rather than a screen value. Colour on glass depends on what sits behind the panel and on the light in front of it, so it had to be fixed on printed glass before the rest of the panels were produced.
Our approach
The colour was settled on printed glass rather than on a screen. A screen shows colour as light, and a panel shows it as ink with the space behind it showing through, so a blue that looks right in a file can land differently on the glass.
Once the printed reference was agreed, it became the standard the rest of the panels were printed to. In a set, what matters is not whether one panel is close on its own: it is whether the panel next to it looks like the same colour.
Production detail
The panels reached us plain, cut to size, with the circular fixing holes already made. Printing is the last step for that reason: a panel cannot be cut or drilled once the artwork is on it without working right at the edge of the print, so the glass arrives finished and the print is laid onto it as it is.
The glass itself is part of the colour. Float glass carries a slight green cast, which pulls pale colours, light blue among them, a little towards green, and wherever there is no white ink behind the colour the background shows through it. Both are decided on a printed sample rather than a swatch.
The result
Panels that read as one light blue across the levels of the atrium, with the colour cured onto the glass rather than applied to it. The client collected the printed panels and installed them.
Common questions
What was matched on this Dubai Mall project?
Do you print balustrade and interior glass panels?
Can the same colour be printed again for replacement panels?
Have glass to print?
Send the panel schedule: sizes, thickness, quantity and the artwork, with the brand colour reference if a colour has to be matched. Glass comes to us cut to size with any holes already made.
